


Too many armies (no one to fight)

by givebackmylifecas



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givebackmylifecas/pseuds/givebackmylifecas
Summary: The new guy is sad, Helsinki can tell right away. Palermo, as he’s introduced to them, is attractive and smart and witty and arrogant and very, very sad in a way that Helsinki recognises. Like recognises like, his mother used to say and Helsinki recognises the loneliness in Palermo. He’s lonely in a way that Helsinki has been for years.
Relationships: Helsinki | Mirko Dragic & Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez, Helsinki | Mirko Dragic/Palermo | Martín Berrote
Comments: 18
Kudos: 66





	Too many armies (no one to fight)

**Author's Note:**

> ahh idk what this is but i felt in need of a fic more focussed on helsi than my other ones have been
> 
> TWs: referenced canonical character deaths, discussion of grief and mourning, self worth issues,
> 
> Fic title from the song "This is why i need you" by Jesse Rueben

The new guy is sad, Helsinki can tell right away. Palermo, as he’s introduced to them, is attractive and smart and witty and arrogant and very, very sad in a way that Helsinki recognises. Like recognises like, his mother used to say and Helsinki recognises the loneliness in Palermo. He’s lonely in a way that Helsinki has been for years.

It’s because of Berlin, that’s obvious very quickly. Helsinki sees traces of that grief in the Professor too, in Bogota, even in Marseille. It’s in the way they look for Berlin in places they must have once been used to seeing him.

Helsinki does the same with Radko. Not as acutely anymore, but he still misses the surety of being able to look to his right and see his cousin there, ready to back him up no matter what. Palermo looks at empty spaces a lot.

-

Helsinki isn’t stupid, no matter what he’s heard Tokyo say. He isn’t just a soldier, he has a brain and he knows that Palermo’s interest in him is more down to convenience than attraction. He doesn’t mind. He’s become used to convenience, both in the war and in prison, and why shouldn’t he blow off steam when half the team is doing the same?

Palermo is nicer than the others give him credit for. He doesn’t kick Helsinki out straight away, not like Nairobi claims. They do talk sometimes after sex. Palermo is funny in an acerbic sort of way and his impressions of the Professor when he gets annoyed are scarily accurate.

It’s when Palermo remembers himself, remembers what he’s lost, that he stops being funny. Helsinki gets better at recognising those moods, remembers the waves of grief that used to wash over him in the months after escaping the mint. He never protests, never needs to hear the compliments Palermo throws his way as half-hearted apologies. He knows the sex is good, he knows Palermo feels bad in ways he’s unwilling to show, he knows it isn’t love.

But he can’t tell Nairobi 'no' when she asks if he’s in love. He gets attached quickly, it’s a flaw he’s never been able to get rid of. He shrugs it off when she says he deserves better. After living the way he’s lived, seeing the things he’s seen, he knows that people rarely get what they deserve. And he has it better than most, he has enough money to look after himself and his family for several lifetimes, he has friends and family in the gang, it’s enough. It has to be.

-

The bank is hell in ways the mint wasn’t. Things go wrong from the minute they enter and Helsinki feels powerless like he hasn’t in a long time as he watches everything go to shit. He almost loses Palermo and then Nairobi and then Palermo again and then he really does lose Nairobi and his head is full of the echo of the shot that killed her.

Palermo comes and finds him and he doesn’t know why except that he does because this is the Palermo he has seen right from the beginning. He knows it isn’t Palermo’s fault, knows Gandia would probably have gotten free eventually but he keeps seeing Nairobi falling to the ground and he can’t believe this is what his life has become – an endless circle of loss.

“What do you know of pain?” he asks and it’s unfair he knows that, but Palermo hadn’t seen Berlin in years and Helsinki held Nairobi’s body in his arms only hours ago.

“Pain is a loan,” Palermo tells him. “It leaves you with a debt you can never pay back.”

“I can take pain. A lot of pain,” Helsinki says and he thinks about Radko, how it had felt when he had to put the man he loved like a brother out of his misery. It was a mercy and it had cost him everything. He thinks about the war and the men he had known, had seen die. Nairobi is at the forefront of everything though, a fresh wound, one he can’t bear to look at yet, not even to see how deep it is, how much of himself he’ll have to put into trying to heal.

Get out of there now,” Palermo warns. “Otherwise you risk becoming a piece of shit like me. This horrible monster I’ve turned into. A guy who destroys everything he touches. Someone who’s wanted to die for many years. And you can’t get out of there. You never get out.”

Helsinki looks at Palermo, with his wet eyes and the cuts on his face and wonders if Berlin were to appear right now, whether he’d understand what he had in Palermo.

“Look, all that ‘boom, boom, ciao’ crap… I treated you like shit. I didn’t dare. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. But let me say, I’m by your side. I won’t let you fall,” Palermo promises and Helsinki wonders if he knows that it sounds like a love declaration.

“I know, I’ve known from the start,” Helsinki admits. “I know who you are.”

Palermo holds out his hand. “My name is Martín Berrote.” Helsinki takes it, all too aware that this is a gift Palermo would not give to just anyone. That he is the first in years to have crossed the lines Palermo drew long ago. “I was born in Buenos Aires, but I live in Palermo, Sicily. I’m going to get you out of here, even if I have to die doing it.”

“My name is Mirko Dragic,” Helsinki says as he presses their hands together, the most innocent and most accepted touch they’ve shared since the night before the mint. “I’m from Belgrade. I lost Oslo in the mint. I lost Nairobi. And I’m not losing anyone else, you included, Martín Berrote,” he promises and Palermo pulls him closer, pressing their foreheads together.

Helsinki has one hand on Palermo’s thigh, the other hand still clasped in Palermo’s.

Their whole relationship has been sort of backwards from the start and he half expects Palermo to pull away when he kisses him, but he doesn’t. Instead, Palermo just tightens his grip on the back of Helsinki’s head and kisses back, a little desperate and he’s still sort of crying and Helsinki wonders how he’s going to survive if he loses Palermo, Martín, now that he’s lost Radko and Nairobi.

Palermo pulls away and Helsinki thinks of the Professor and Lisbon, of Denver and Stockholm, Rio and Tokyo, even Bogota and Nairobi for the brief time they had each other. For the first time in a long time he allows himself to want. He wants what they all have together, what seems to come naturally to them. It’s what he wants with Palermo – which is a relationship that is not based simply on convenience or furtive late night encounters.

Helsinki stares at Palermo and decides that maybe that’s the real difference between them. They’ve both known grief and pain and heartache but Palermo is lonely because he wants too much and Helsinki is too afraid to want anything at all and somehow they’ve found themselves together in the biggest heist Europe or maybe even the world has ever seen.

-

The shower is just this side of too hot, the water streaming down on him and making his skin turn pink. He’s been here for ages now, maybe an hour and still the water hasn’t gone cold. He remembers before – before Palermo, before the heists, before the Professor, before prison – when he would go weeks without hot, running water, making do with luke-warm washes with a sponge and a bucket. Here, in his new life, Helsinki has a functioning heating system and a bathroom bigger than the entirety of any flat he lived in growing up.

Palermo had insisted, saying that after everything they deserved a little bit of luxury. Who is Helsinki to say he doesn’t want a house of his own, a king-sized bed, a fully stocked fridge, blankets softer than they have any right to be. Especially since he has Palermo to share it all with.

The water continues to fall like warm rain as he leans back against the tiled wall, still cool against his heated skin despite the temperature inside the bathroom. The shower is ridiculously large too, big enough for six men his size and certainly large enough for both himself and Palermo on the occasions when he can be persuaded to join Helsinki.

The glass panels that make up one wall and the door to the shower are fogged up and he can see the remnants of one of the equations Palermo likes to work on when he showers, imprinted on the glass by his distinctly smaller fingerprints.

He pulls his knees towards his chest and looks at the water gathering on his stomach and thighs before it sluices through the gap between his knees. The water warps his tattoos into unrecognisable distortions of themselves and he trails his fingers across the ink, thinking about the control each one of them brought him. Control over pain, control over his body, his appearance, his reputation in the army, his connection to the moments he dedicated each tattoo to.

The newest is just over a year old, the string of numbers representing the coordinates to the African city Nairobi had named herself after. He didn’t have a lot of room left on his torso but the tattooist did a good job of working the tiny numbers into the skin above his heart.

He doesn’t hear the bathroom door open, but he does look up when a section of glass slides to one side and Palermo steps into the shower. He doesn’t say anything, just moves across the marble to sit down next Helsinki.

His skin feels icy against his own, and Helsinki lifts an arm to pull Palermo closer when he wraps both of his arms around Helsinki’s middle. A kiss is pressed to his throat and he turns his head a little to look at Palermo, his hair already plastered to his head, drops of water clinging to his eyelashes and running along the whitening scars on his face.

“Two years ago today, right?” Palermo asks even though Helsinki knows he knows.

They both felt the day nearing, same as they had the year before, with a certain amount of trepidation on both their parts.

He clears his throat as he nods. “Yeah.”

Last year they went to the beach. They sat on the sand and drank the overly sweet cocktails Nairobi had secretly liked but pretended not to and Palermo had put his head on Helsinki’s chest and said: “Tell me about her.”

Afterwards, when they got home, Palermo had helped him write a letter – he’s better with words than Helsinki will ever be. It was for Nairobi’s son, to somehow give to him when he’s old enough to understand who his mother was. Palermo suggested it, shoulders tight, jaw clenched, and looking wholly surprised when Helsinki dragged him into a hug.

Helsinki has written another one this year. Some things are the same as he said last year, some are new things he remembered, like how Nairobi was allergic to oranges and he never knew until they went drinking one day in Argentina and her tongue started swelling up.

Palermo was out somewhere, probably at the shops, when he finished and so he’d dragged himself, heavy with memories into the shower, in the hopes of washing away some of the grief that still coats him like fine dust.

“What do you want to do today?” Palermo asks, moving so his chin is resting on Helsinki’s shoulder, legs bracketing his waist, feet squeezing between Helsinki’s back and the wall, completely wrapped around him like ivy on a tree.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to remember or do you want to be distracted?” Palermo says and Helsinki can feel his jaw moving against his skin.

Helsinki runs a hand up Palermo’s back, lips twitching at the way the other man pushes into the touch like a cat.

“I don’t know,” he says again. “Maybe both.”

“Well you can’t stay in here any longer,” Palermo says decisively. “It’s bad for your skin and you’ll catch a cold.”

“We live in a tropical country, Martín,” Helsinki tells him, huffing a laugh against the damp skin on the back of his neck.

Palermo pulls back a little, smoothing his thumb across Helsinki’s eyebrow and making him blink. “I know that. But you can still catch a chill. Now come on, sofa day.”

Helsinki sighs as Palermo climbs off him, and allows the smaller man to pull him to his feet. Palermo turns off the shower and shakes his head, trying to flip his wet hair out of his eyes. Helsinki reaches out and runs his hand through it so it sticks up in every direction. Palermo gives him a look entirely reminiscent of a disgruntled kitten, but grabs his hand anyway, dragging him out into the bathroom proper.

He’s quickly handed a towel and told to dry himself, which he does. Palermo disappears briefly, returning with clothes for the two of them. It’s just underwear and t-shirts, but once they’re both semi-dressed Helsinki is chivvied out of the bathroom’s humidity and into their living room.

The sofa being ridiculously wide and deep was something they’d both agreed on when they were first furnishing the flat and Helsinki can’t count the amount of times they’ve slept on it instead of dragging themselves to bed.

He lets Palermo push him into the corner seat and even cover him with a blanket despite the warmth of the day. When Palermo doesn’t make to join him, he sits up again in confusion.

“I’m getting drinks, I’ll be right there,” Palermo tells him, disappearing into the kitchen.

He returns with two glasses of whiskey and hands one to Helsinki.

“To Nairobi,” he says and Helsinki clinks his glass against Palermo’s.

“To Nairobi,” Helsinki repeats around the lump in his throat.

Palermo drains his glass and when Helsinki has done the same, the whiskey – no doubt a ridiculously expensive brand – burning in his chest, Palermo crawls onto the sofa in front of him, pressing his back to Helsinki’s chest. Helsinki wraps an arm around him, nose pressed into his hair as Palermo fumbles for the remote and turns on the TV.

“You’re not going to make me watch another documentary on the Panama Canal are you?” he asks and Palermo throws him a filthy look over his shoulder.

“No,” he says, flicking through menus until he settles on Anastasia.

“I thought you don’t like animated films?”

Palermo shrugs. “I don’t, but you said this was her favourite, so let’s watch it. That way you’re distracted and you’re remembering at the same time.”

Helsinki is quiet for a moment and he feels Palermo tense against him. He rolls in Helsinki’s arms until they’re face to face.

“We don’t have to, Mirko,” Palermo says sincerely, clever eyes studying him.

Helsinki shakes his head. “No, I want to. It’s really thoughtful of you.”

A smile twitches on Palermo’s lips. “I try. Not often, if Sergio is to be believed, but sometimes I do.”

Helsinki kisses the smile off his face. “I know you do.”

Palermo kisses him again, and then again on his left and right cheek and then his nose and finally his forehead. It’s a strange habit he has, always doing it in that order, but Helsinki knows it’s his way of showing love and affection.

“I love you, Martín,” he murmurs.

Palermo, as he always does when he's told that, looks like he wants to both cry and make out with him. He does neither this time and just smiles a little.

“I love you too,” he says, turning back to face the TV, fingers of one hand linking with Helsinki’s. “Now, Anastasia?”

“Anastasia,” Helsinki agrees, curling more tightly around Palermo.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it maybe? yell at me here, on tumblr ([@hefellfordean](https://hefellfordean.tumblr.com)), or twitter ([@angstypalermo](https://twitter.com/angstypalermo))


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